And Now
a Word from the Netroots:
Will the Real Barack Obama Please… Sit Down?

As the betrayals by
President Barack Obama and the Democrats mount,
the Obamapologetics
grow more desperate and contradictory by the day. In a recent Washington
Postop-ed,
Harold Meyerson pointed to the lack of "left pressure from below"
to account for Obama's failure to push his supposedly "progressive
reforms." As if a majority of tens of millions weren't enough, Obama
still needs more "aid" from his constituency to find the courage
to deliver his promised "change."

On MSNBC, Chris Matthews
took
the very opposite tack. Growing apparently more impatient by the day,
he suggested that these very people from below- the net-root "troublemakers
who love to sit in the back seat and complain," i.e., his departing
viewers-are to blame for Obama's failures. These "back-seat bitchers,"
as he called them, which surely include millions that donated to Obama's
fabulous campaign, have the temerity to oppose his current policies simply
because he denounced them in campaign speeches. Matthews's outrage at
these low-life scumbags was palpable. MSNBC is a network of Obamapologists
no matter how he betrays his and their own words in every conceivable
way and at every turn.

Some will argue that
Matthews has his counterparts in Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. Meyerson
even called on them to lead the charge of the underground brigade. But
they do for the Democrats in the media precisely what Dennis Kucinich
(D-OH) and John Conyers (D-MI) do for them in Congress-provide left cover
and keep legions of troublemakers under the Democratic tent, no
matter how angry and disaffected they become.

The Huffington
Post's Richard (RJ) Eskow laments
the Democrats' support of the nefarious "Cadillac Tax" on
healthcare plans- "a policy," he writes, "that by 2016
will reduce coverage for one American in five with employer insurance..
.[a] figure would rise sharply each year." But he chalks up this
corporate giveaway (the tax will cause companies to generously reduce
their workers' health benefits so that they won't have to pay taxes on
them) to an "'aha' moment, a flash of insight"-rather than to
the obvious explanation. To wit, the Democrats serve these very companies
and not the workers who will lose by this legislation. As for the pharmaceuticals
and the insurance industries, these will benefit from coercion-threats
of fines and/or imprisonment that will force more money into corporate
coffers.

The New York Times
holds out hope for "regulatory reforms" of the banking industry
to avoid another meltdown and subsequent spate of corporate bailouts.
They lament
the effectual resignation of Chris Dodd (D-CT), and ask the real Dodd
"to please stand up" to support meaningful legislation before
he leaves the Senate (probably to become a lobbyist for the banking industry).
He could, you know, "try to make a difference." We know that
the real Chris Dodd is standing up-and walking out the door. He is leaving
just as the proof gels in the pudding; banking reforms were never going
to happen in the first place and he knows it. He also knows that he won't
help Obama deliver on any promises. He will now leave the Senate to increase
the size of the void left by his compeers as they do absolutely nothing
for the people and everything for their corporate masters. The chilly
void, felt by the majority, will be filled by the Republicans, who will
at least bring an ingenuous face to the corporate oligarchy's complete
control of the political process.

While the liberal
media and the "real Democrats," as Matthews calls his like,
wait for Godot, we "back-seat bitchers" continue to dictate
directions from the rear. But when no one is listening, it is very frustrating
to be right.

But we will repeat
it. Obama was brought in for one reason and one reason only - to put a
better, even subaltern face on imperialism, martial adventurism, and the
economic decline of the vast majority. He was brought in for his astounding
rhetorical ability - to package war escalation and economic rollbacks
and to sell them as peace and reforms. He was brought in so that the Republican
boosters could call him a socialist and thereby provide right cover for
his government as it handed over the federal treasury in bailouts and
war bucks. Obama was brought in precisely because his rhetoric was
so far at odds with reality that it would take a little over four years
for the front-row Democratic boosters to see events as they happened,
rather than as they were narrated by him and his media mouthpieces.

Instead of asking,
as netplants are doing, for the real Democrats to stand up, we
netroots ask them, especially their leader Barrack Obama, to please sit
down. Please sit down and stop pretending to be our allies. Please
sit down and stop misleading millions with phony rhetoric and lies. Please
sit down so that the millions can be disabused of your illusions at last.
Please stop flying your false flags of progress and reform. Please sit
down so that we can begin in earnest the work of building a real party
in opposition to you and the masters whom you serve so well.